Chúc mừng năm mới! (Happy New Year!)
Though not an official religious holiday, the Lunar New Year is a wonderful opportunity to cultivate joy. At our celebrations, we call to mind our loved ones’ presence, both living and dead. We celebrate the relationships and memories that have brought about the good and beautiful things in our lives, even us we nourish forgiveness and healing for the suffering.
It is also a time for reflection. Looking back, we can see where we have grown, and where we have not. Looking ahead, we aspire to practice in a way that brings healing to places of suffering in and around us, and to cultivate harmony and peace in our community. We understand that we can begin again with each moment, and the new year is an especially good opportunity to strengthen our habit of beginning again, making our practice and spirit fresh.
Because of this, Lunar New Year is a wonderful time to cultivate Right Resolve. We become aware of unskillful habits and patterns that lead to suffering in our selves, others, and the earth, and resolve to prevent and let go of them. We become aware of skillful habits and patterns that lead to wellbeing in our selves, others, and the earth, and resolve to practice them. In this way, we strengthen our commitment to the path of insight and Awakening.
New Year Traditions
Many people prepare for Tết by doing extra house cleaning and by cooking special holiday food, such as rice cakes with mung bean filling (square bánh chưng to represent the earth and circular bánh tét to represent the moon).
Being the first visitor to a person’s house on the first day of the new year (xông nhà) is a New Year’s honor. We also have traditions for venerating ancestors, exchanging New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money, and visiting friends and loved ones.
At the temple, we combine these celebrations with sharing lucky dollar bills, practicing the Avolokiteshvara Oracles, making offerings to the ancestors, and celebrating with games, music, and food. We conclude with an offering to the hungry ghosts.
On the week after our Lunar New Year celebration, we pray for peace and chant the Medicine Buddha mantra, beginning with a candle offering.
New Year Blossoms
In Vietnam, springtime blossoms arrive with the Lunar New Year, and flowers are an especially meaningful offering and decoration.
The blooms remind us that they must be appreciated in this very moment, because they are impermanent. No matter how carefully we tend for them, we know that they will soon fade.
So, the New Year blossoms teach us to live deeply in each moment, and to care for and enjoy our practice. Just as we replace the blooms as they wilt, composting them and growing something new, we understand that we need to care for our practice and community, keeping our compassion and wisdom fresh.